C: I disappeared a bit because I stopped smoking, last year January 2023, to get rid of excessive tamas. It worked and/but saw all kinds of tamasic things only after quitting. Smoking was like a carpet, it seems, under which all dust got collected.
Well, my plan was to work this out first and once that’s done to mail you again 🙂
It takes a bit longer than I thought. It looks to me, now, that I understood early, perhaps a bit too fast kind of, that I wasn’t the gunas, so, most of the time it is all good and easy, but not over, so to speak – continuous.
Sundari: It’s great to hear from you again. Vasanas are really like a carpet covering the mind, under which all the detritus of the gunas gets swept gathers and grows. It is very common for Self-realized people to claim moksa too soon – before the remaining work of doership negation is completed. It’s the most subtle stage. Or, they get stuck in ‘studying Vedanta’, which never works. Vedanta is not theory in practice, it is who you are. Good for you doing the work of cleaning up the remnants of duality in the form of binding vasanas, and the final doer renunciation. Both James and I wrote about this topic – I posted a satsang on it this recently, called ‘The Final Negation of Doership’. I have attached it for you.
C: It is more like adjusting and training the mind more, so as to reflect better/clearer. It looks difficult, but actually much has changed for the better. Well, you taught me basically everything, and I still enjoy the satsangs that got this mind un-I’d. 🙂 It is a beautiful, creative and logical teaching. Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya Jivo Bramaiva Na Parah.You gave me all the tools.
Sundari: Yes, if Self-knowledge is about training the mind to think differently. If the nondual teachings are assimilating, and you are applying the teachings to your life, your life will improve. Not only because you are cleaning up the unconscious jiva drives but the way you relate to your karma changes – even if your karma does not change that much. Moksa is not about perfecting the jiva, but it is about giving it a good life, and the only way to do that as you know all too well, is with Self-knowledge. If there is no improvement, it means the teachings have not assimilated and/or are not being applied/ or there is a duality blockage.
C: I give this jiva/mind another 2 years or so, to clean up most of it. Such a timespan seems/feels fair enough, also practical speaking. I, Self, am, beyond words.
Sundari: It’s good to have a plan – to make a commitment to doing the work. Except when it comes to Self-actualization, Isvara does not know of your plans. That comes with grace, and it requires the continuing humility of applying the teachings. For as long as it takes. You are always the Self, nothing can change that. The steps to ‘get there are the qualities of being there’. You are there. With just a few remaining layers of avidya to contend with. May Isvara smile on you!
C: I replied to the last mail, cut it short, added, etc. But I wasn’t happy with it… so I took a broom to see what is what here. And came to the conclusion that ‘the data are in’. It is time to become quiet, meditate and make sure that assimilation settles, deeper let’s say, not to know more, per se. It seems that I have a quick mind, mercury-like, creative, but also something sleepy.
Sundari: Time out to contemplate so that assimilation can take place is always a good idea when things are stirred up. All three gunas are always present as you know, with two usually dominating. A quick mercurial mind can be a boon if sattva is in balance with rajas, as can a slower mind be useful if tamas is in balance with sattva. Problems arise when the relative proportions of rajas or tamas are out of balance with sattva. Highly creative people like yourself often have an imbalance, they go on a rajasic tear and have a tamasic burnout. Too much rajas always results in too much tamas (dull mind).
C: I, Self is without attributes – but I can speak, think, just the same. How else can there be the teaching? So, when nirvikalpa happens jiva is not or hardly present – when savikalpa happens – depending on self-knowledge; jiva is hardly or not present either.
Therefore: Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya Jivo Bramaiva Na Parah.
Sundari: The Self being attributeless does not speak think or act, though all happen by virtue of the presence of the Self. I know what you mean, but nirvikalpa or savikalpa are not ‘happenings”. When nirvilkalpa is present, there is no mind, no jiva. In savikalpa the jiva can be present but the mind is single-pointed on the Self.
C: I have to help myself here, or jiva rather and I think I know how-to. If not, I can ask you later – but this, knowing what I know, being able to verify and adjust faulty assumptions – or pesty convictions – I will sit and teach/remove this jiva-figure here, from the inside out, as if that is not already the case 🙂 It is subtle, you said a few times, and it is – obvious also.
Sundari: Who sits and teaches, who does the ‘I’ refer to? The jiva cannot remove or teach itself. The Self does not teach or remove the jiva either as the jiva is the Self. Assuming qualifications and a qualified teacher, Self-knowledge dissolves the split between subject and object, it simply breaks the false identification with the jiva as separate, flawed, and incomplete.
C: Some time ago you said that there is mithya wisdom and Self-knowledge wisdom – I take this to be a difference from the karma-yogi and the jnani-yogi?
Sundari: Mithya knowledge is worldly knowledge, which can be knowledge about anything. We need knowledge to succeed and survive in life, but mithya knowledge is subject to change and error, and not always present. Self-knowledge, satya, is who you are, it never changes and is always good in any situation and at all times. It is the one and only non-negatable factor. A jnani is someone who is never confused about which is which and automatically discriminates between satya and mithya.
C: I have a question on what Nirvikalpa means, by effect/experience. Because if savikalpa happens spontaneously, so does nirvikalpa, apparently. Is that when ‘mere observation’ – a kind of thoughtlessness, as if ‘in’ forgetting, takes place?
Sundari:. You cannot make either savikalpa or nirvikalpa ‘happen’. They are the result of the mind standing still and the Self shining purely in it. Samadhi involves thought, the jiva is present as it is a cognitive samadhi, in which there is objective experience or experience of “qualities”, with the triad of knower, knowledge and known.
Nirvikalpa samahdi is non-conceptual; without the modifications of the mind, i.e., no thoughts at all, but it is not forgetting. Rather, it is complete remembrance, as in wholeness. The experience of being the Self. It is beyond all duality in which there is no objective experience or experience of “qualities” whatsoever, and in which the triad of knower, knowledge and known does not exist.
It is considered the highest state of samadhi, beyond all thought, attribute, and description, which is why some people confuse it with moksa. But it is an experience nonetheless, and all experiences happen in time and end. If Self-knowledge is not firm, ignorance returns once the samadhi ends.
C: Is kalpa prior to the guna’s and affecting them?
Sundari: Kalpa is another word for time, which is synonymous with Isvara. Kalpa is the term for the length of the creation, also called the Day of Brahma. It alternates with a Night of Brahma of the same length. In the Day of Brahma creation is manifest and in the Night of Brahma is it resolved into its causal state. You are maybe confusing prakriti with kalpa?
There is no time for Awareness, so it is very difficult to explain the creation teaching, but let’s assume time existed. First and always, there is Pure Consciousness. Secondly, Maya (Pure Macrocosmic Sattva) appears and Awareness plus Maya ‘becomes’ Isvara in the role of creator. Lastly, matter appears, but Macrocosmic sattvic prakriti is present before matter appears. Prakriti is the clear mirror of Consciousness, prior to the emergence of rajas and tamas.
Prakriti as the subtle nature or substance of all matter, subtle and gross, the blueprint of all forms, existing eternally within Maya. Prakriti does not exist without Maya. There is no point in talking about the difference between them because prakriti does not mean anything without Maya. They are the same, but they are not.
Isvara associated with Maya is independent of prakriti because Isvara is trigunaatita, beyond the gunas. Prakriti depends on Isvara, not the other way around. And Isvara as Pure consciousness gives rise to creation but is always free of the creation.
C: Thank you for the clarification. I was seeking through thinking to find/come to knowledge, certainty or essence, more than ‘finding happiness’ – or felt that the truth will/must set free, so that is happiness. I also thought that moods, feelings, and emotions do have not much to do with this. Now I know they don’t but do, in a way as they, well, are gunas, and seem to have a say in the qualities of experience, i.e. useful for clarity. I am fine with a chunk of tamas, it doesn’t bother me; inherently none of the gunas are a problem to ahamkara – not per se.
Sundari: Correct, a jnani has no problem with any of the gunas and simply relates to (observes) them as orientation pointers and adjustments for the jiva. However, though the gunas are objects known to me, as peace of mind is prized above all, a jnani seeks to keep rajas and tamas in balance with sattva through lifestyle choices and knowledge of the typical thoughts/feelings that emerge with rajas and tamas.
C: And jiva never thought of having to deal with dark moods, in part because it has an optimistic and easy-going nature – that remains during hardship mostly. So, I take the gloominess for what it is. It goes away simply by kicking ‘its ass’ and/or a good night of rest. Pain may be a teacher, – pain, physically, without much thought, just get through, fuck it – and a blow to the ego is mostly good, but suffering .. what in the world enjoys that?
Sundari: Yep, good attitude to have to rajas and tamas! Sometimes there is nothing to do but go with rajas or tamas, no point in fighting it or much mind management. But other times it is advisable to use sattva as a grappling hook to get out of manic rajas, or deploy some rajas to get out of dull doom and gloom tamas.
C: At any rate, all this may be; but I don’t want it to repeat. I lived an edgy life, still do in some sense, so ‘experience’ is fast, has momentum but some of it does leave a trace in the mind and becomes a memory that plays into present vasana’s, or so it seems. Hah, it sounds complicated, but it isn’t. I give it some attention, that is good, but I don’t like it in my responses to you.
The key is what jiva and Isvara share: Self, and what they don’t share, micro and macro cosmos; which, as Self, makes no difference.
Sundari: Excellent.
C: I do a lot of karma yoga now, in areas that are so contrary to what I meant, intended, in life. It is pulling outward, but that’s ok, for now. Working out lists of things – calls to make, handling chaotic weather, worldly stuff. Each morning and evening I let it go again.
Sundari: Karma yoga is the way of course, but who is ‘doing’ it? We must all attend to our worldly jiva stuff, it goes with the territory of being ‘human’. As a karma yogi, we ‘do’ karma yoga to get what we want in life. As a jnani, we relinquish the idea of doership altogether, and trust Isvara totally, but we still take appropriate action.
Chantur: Fuel to the doer – it’s a tight balance. I can see how it is trouble and also how gold and crow shit is the same, that ‘lack’ is unreal, relative, and so on. Nonetheless, jiva finds it often difficult to live in this culture, basically: the downplay of dignity – self-respect of and for all that lives. Powerplay, crushing morals, authority/ obedience etc… money… I found it very distressing to experience the battle of ego’s, it makes no sense to me, whatsoever. I feel zero respect for powerplay.
Some good old competition is fine but the stakes are taken too far, to my mind – it’s nuts. The absurdity makes it humorous – but too much thought on it, I cancel, it’s not worth it. Creation has something amazing to it, beautiful, mesmerizing. Its beauty may not be real, but to the degree that it is; how hard is that to see? Why love war, manipulation, power and such things and act that out on such a scale? Even ‘care’ is corrupted, I see what politicians and others do – but, a thousand years ago, the same type of shit happened. I remember all kinds of complicated thoughts on ethics, discussions with academics. They said that ethics is hard, but I thought, no, living by wisdom, is hard. Perhaps the wheel is in Kali-yuga … Mithya is the place to work it all out; Isvara dishes out the results. Ignorance is ignorance, a twilight zone. Ok.. enough.
Sundari: Good mithya rant! Mithya is not a place, it’s a mirage, an idea created by the play of the gunas, nobody is doing anything because none of it is real. Isvara is both dharma and adharma, it can only be that way or duality would end and there would be no opportunity to work out our karma. Why bother taking a stand to judge any of it? The play of the gunas has always been thus, and always will be.
C: Is it right to say that ignorance may not be a problem, actually, because it isn’t real, but is a problem because it makes suffering possible, which is unnatural to freedom, the very truth of existence essentially? Unless there is a desire for suffering … but that’s really strange.
Sundari: Ignorance is only a problem when you do not know what it is. – which means that duality is going to seriously mess you up. When you do know the difference between duality and nonduality, discrimination is automatic and permanent. Then and only then can you truly enjoy it for what it has to offer. It temporary bliss, but it is still beautiful because it is you. Mithya ‘becomes’ satya. Fear is a thing of the past because the illusion of loss and gain is no more.
C: I often get the impression that the cosmos is a ‘reject-ion’ of what is not-self, which cannot be, so it is not; and consecrates the fact of being, as if by might; but sweet and loving. It’s like a mystery but maybe not mystical; depending on experience versus empirical notions.
Sundari: The ‘cosmos’ is not a mystery or mystical, or sweet and loving, for that matter. Those are just jiva projections. It’s a movie. If it’s not real, how can it reject its(not)self? The Self ‘sees’ only itself, and all is well with the world. It is there because I see it, not the other way around.
C: (…) – plus timeless, I realize, Thanks to You, Sundari-Self.
Sundari: Definitely not thanks to me. Thanks to the teachings, to Isvara, the Self. You. I am just Isvara’s scribe.
C: Ok, point taken. I know what You/I am. I feel an endless Thank You for the teaching. The last days much fell off, duality only seems complicated. While cutting wood, a job to build a fence, the sun was shining and birds chirping – a robin hopping around that wasn’t afraid of me, or the noise of my machines, all is peaceful.
Sundari: A state of grace. You are always welcome, you are doing great. I love the way your mind works, and hearing from you.
Much love
Sundari
